C S 18-06-22

The-Truth-About-Debt  

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There are several aspects of human life
that have been in existence and/or practiced for so long
that they are rarely questioned by the average person.   ***1¹   
Corporate stock ownership is one of them.   We think of it as normal, but is it?   What are the benefits and what are the disadvantages?   

The Benefits:   As a benefit, selling stock is a rather straight forward way for corporations to borrow money needed to create their products and/or services.   It's a way for people to store their wealth for future use.   It makes a profit for the lender.   It's a way to get money working for you instead of you working for money.

The Down Side:   The borrower (the corporation) either loses its sovereignty or becomes a debtor or both.   If you, as an individual, carried a big debt, you'd have to shift a significant portion of your earnings  away from taking care of yourself and your family and instead, use the money to pay your lenders.   The same is true for a corporation.    

Critics of the above perspective say that a corporation is a non-person, it's a legal entity only and thus, it has no "self" to take care of.    This perspective  ignores the fact that a corporation is made up of its employees, including management.   Its focus should also include the customers and it has an obligation to be a steward of its environment. 

As an individual your highest option is to get out of debt as soon as possible.   Why?  Because debt costs you money.   It costs you freedom.   The bigger the debt, the more it costs.   Unless you can borrow low and lend high, the only sensible answer is  "Get our of debt as quickly as possible."   The same principles applies to a corporation.   

Money Rules:   As corporations are currently structured, they are owned by the stockholders.   Company executives manage the corporation for the stockholders.   With rare exceptions, the stockholders have only two  interests:   dividends and higher stock prices.   

With the advent of public stock sales, it became possible for anybody with a few dollars to spare to buy some stock and thus become a "lender" to the corporation.   With the introduction of the small lender,  the big lenders saw another way to make more money for themselves.    By managing the money for the small investor, the big lenders, not only could they get a percentage of the small investor's profits,  they could also secretly  manipulate the stock prices and, in essence, steal money from each other and from the small investors.    They could make big profits by  buying or selling stock based on private information.   This became known as insider trading.   

The Curse of Debt :   A close examination reveals debt and the interest charged on the use of borrowed money to be one of the major tools for the  manipulation and control of others.     It's also the major source of the world's financial problems.    It's gotten so far out of hand that the super-wealthy are no longer in charge of the money machine that they created.   

They have set into motion, forces over which they no longer have control.   Thousands of hot-shot wheelers and dealers have taken their exploitation system and refined it,  expanded it,  and manipulated the economy with it to the level that the entire system is about to collapse.  Borrowing money has moved from borrowing to produce goods and services to  borrowing to lend to someone else at a higher interest rate.   This is a legal variation of the illegal pyramid scam.  

The money manipulators  have given out thousands of questionable  loans.   They've borrowed huge sums  for high-risk investments that failed.   They've ripped off billions of dollars and walked away from collapsing companies.   They've engaged in numerous shady and illegal activities.   They've stolen (manipulated the rules in order to extract)  billions of dollars from corporate retirement funds.   It's gotten so bad that without major changes, the system is about to self-destruct.   

Today, the focus on money and profits has become so great that almost nothing else matters.   Big money lenders have succeeded in  manipulating the laws and have legalized some very shady deals for themselves.   For example, the illegal, 1930's-style loan sharking has become legal and is now  the property of the financial industry.  

In the 1930's, when Al-Capone-style  back-alley loan sharks charged excessive interest on loans, they were considered criminals.   Loan sharking was considered a serious crime and those caught went to jail.    Today, that former criminal activity is legal.   Loan sharks are no longer found in back alleys, and beer bars.  The criminals have taken over the government, changed the laws and declared themselves to be  immune from prosecution.  Today the criminals wear thousand-dollar suites and have fancy offices with huge, expensive buildings with  corporate names over the front doors.   They are no longer called criminals.   They're now called bankers.   

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Section Title:    The-Truth-About-Debt